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The decision was unanimous this year, with little if any argument. This is a little unusual

An Oxford Dictionaries statement

One of the most famous selfies was taken by Pope Francis posing with teenagers at the Vatican earlier this year.

The picture went viral as it was shared numerous times on social media site Twitter.

Oxford Dictionaries said the earliest known use if the word was in an Australian online forum post in 2002.

The post said: “Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer (sic) and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps.

“I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.”

A number of spin-off terms have derived from self including ‘hellfire’ which is a picture of someone’s hair and belfie, a snap of someone’s bottom.

Selfie beat twerking to be crowned 2013 word of the year by the Oxford Dictionaries [TWITTER]

Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said: “Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research programme, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year.”

The word has not been added to the Oxford English Dictionary yet although it is being considered for future inclusion.

Ms Pearsall added: “Social media sites helped to popularise the term, with the hashtag #selfie appearing on the photo-sharing website Flickr as early as 2004, but usage wasn’t widespread until around 2012, when selfie was being used commonly in mainstream media sources.”